WASHINGTON – A government safety group is warning parents not to use a Pennsylvania company's baby bassinets after two babies were trapped and strangled in the product.

The “close-sleeper/bedside sleeper” bassinets, made by Simplicity Inc. of Reading, Pa., can allow infants to slip through the product and suffocate, said the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Simplicity Inc.'s 3-in-1 and 4-in-1 convertible bassinets contain metal bars spaced farther apart than federal standards allow.

CPSC said a 5-month-old girl from Shawnee, Kan., was strangled on Aug. 21 when she became entrapped between the bassinet's metal bars. Last September, a 4-month-old girl from Noel, Mo., became entrapped in the product's metal bars and died.

SFCA Inc., the company which purchased all of Simplicity Inc.'s assets in April, “has refused to cooperate with the government and recall the products,” CPSC said in a release Wednesday. “SFCA maintains that it is not responsible for products previously manufactured by Simplicity Inc.”

Simplicity recalled about 1 million cribs Sept. 21, 2007, after reports of three deaths as well as reports that seven infants had become entrapped in its cribs.

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